Originally Posted By phat


Try to resist the temptation a bit.. A couple of friends I've hiked with who are vets (Canadian, but hey, pretty much same gear) were looking at heavy gear when they got out and went to aquire a "civilian" rig - because they were "used to carrying a lot of weight and so it's no problem" - my answer was always "then if you pack light you'll just be able to go a lot further and enjoy it more".. Or put it this way, if a fat civilian computer nerd hikes 20 to 25 km in a day that way and enjoys it - you should be able to go a lot further smile

Most of the time when I sat down with them and showed them

1) Good dehydrated food and a small stove (you don't have to
eat MRE's and they are heavy!)
2) had them think about how much weapon, ammo, grenades, commo, batteries, etc. they carried.
3) got them to think "how much did the rest weigh" (the answer to this is almost always "pretty darn little")

Once they got to thinking that, other than their actual fighting gear, they hiked pretty darn light when they were "in" - there just wasn't a lot of room for "extras" after all the ammo, etc. Then I had 'em look at what I take in my list
and think and they did pretty good.




Good points. Right now I'm sitting at 33.77 lbs. I went out today and got a kitchen scale and weighed every thing. I still have some stuff to add (food mostly). and I also know I can off load some of that weight into other packs because I will be carrying some of the items they simply do not have. Ie food and fuel. Im for get the term I think it was FUD? meaning worried about everything or something. I don't think of my self as paranoid but I do live by the moto always prepared or never prepared. to that end I carry a good sized med kit. navigation and communications aids.

After reading the lists and comments others have posted i wanted to ask a few questions.

Cell Phones & GPS - I notice people seam to be very adverse to them. I wanted to throw out my justification and see what people thought.

I carry my Cell Phone, (iPhone because it serves more than one purpose.
1. Its a camera... and a dang good one.
2. It works as an communication device in a pinch. some times when you can't make a call connect you can get a text out.
3. Houses some good reference books for us beginner back packers. things like First aid, Edible plants...
4. Can function as a back up GPS but holy cow does the battery die in a hurry when using the GPS to hike.
5. Makes up <1% of my total pack weight and in airplane mode can last all weekend on one charge.

I carry a rather large Garmin Montana GPS. I have plans of getting a smaller one but I love to make tracks and post them on my groups site so others can see where I went, How far, and how high. it also house Topo, and Satellite map plus Waypoints. It has already proved invaluable on previous trips.

A Goal Zero Guide 10 Plus & Nomad 7M Solar Panel For recharging batteries for my head lamp, cell phone, spot tracker and GPS. To me having the ability to recharge batteries is far more important that packing in a boat load of batteries.

It total my "electronics" package weights in at 57 oz
and includes
8xAA Batteries - 8oz
iPhone 3S - 4.9oz
iPhone Tripod - 2oz
SPOT Tracker - 4.8oz
Goal Zero Panel Kit -26oz
Garmin GPS -10.5oz

Thoughts?